From where I stand…

Tag Archives: shadow

The freshness of spring, among my favourite things. And with that freshness, the scents of spring, fresh-cut grass, tilled earth, and the flowers opening to the warm sun above. As well, the ferns have a unique aroma, which is quite noticeable when there are many plants.

Yet, even in the shadows, fresh life emerges. From the cool recesses of the forest floor, ferns break ground an uncoil their stems in the form of fiddle-heads. They are quite wonderful to see and mark the next stage of spring, the emergence of summer plants, those which will remain the rest of the season.

These tightly wound shoots seem to spring up from nothing, stretching skyward, and within days are clearly identifiable as the ferns which will soon blanket their surroundings. And so, this phase is brief and worth grabbing an image to share today. Tomorrow, it will be quite different, as it opens up to the sun.

On the spring theme of the Rainbow Trout spawn that occurs every year in this area, here’s a slightly abstract image of a trout mid-run up Duffins Creek, near Whitevale, Ontario. The image above is a time exposure of a single trout swimming against a particularly strong current at a point where the clear water in the foreground is mixing with water contaminated with clay, caused by the spring melt run-off from an adjacent bluff.

The dark and barely discernible shadow of the trout hangs suspended above the rocks as the water flows rapidly around him. He appears, for the moment, to be running against the odds. The reality of the image is that the fish is actually ‘stuck’ as the world around him rushes by; neither progressing nor loosing ground. He’s in a transition between clear and murky, movement and stasis.

In the end, he broke though and continued his journey up-stream, though that outcome seems uncertain at this moment in time.

On returning from a late day walk last summer, I looked up and saw this unique view of the sunset in Stouffville’s Memorial Park. The sun was just setting and the silhouette of the leaves against the setting sun got my interest. I’m always pleasantly surprised at the beauty all around us, whether grand mountain vistas or a simple tree in a park. You just have to be able to see it. This was a nice way to wind down from the day.